SGS Notes: We're sending out our newsletter mid-week this issue because there is so much going on right now we want you to be aware of. The JP Morgan news is HUGE… so we are featuring various articles this week about that and the implications for all of us.

There are also things happening in the Eurozone and in Greece that will affect us all dramatically. Hold on to your seats, the ride is about to get bumpy. We're looking for the end of the metals manipulation when physical silver prices detach from the ETC prices… should be soon. We saw silver spot dip below $27 this week, and, looking at the Gold/Silver ratio… it's up quite high - again. Remember: that ratio SHOULD be in the 16/1 range. Still a long way to go.

Dismal Metals Sentiment - Just What Bernanke OrderedJeff Lewis

Since the dramatic drops the silver market saw in May and September of last year, prices in the precious metals market have been suffering from an excess of negative sentiment. This adverse perception is weighing on metal prices and keeping investor demand at bay.

Furthermore, although investors have continued to buy physical silver, the overall quantity being purchased has declined significantly, resulting in reduced support for the metal's price.
Nevertheless, the supply of silver is naturally limited by the quantity existing in the Earth's crust, despite ever growing industrial applications for the metal and rising price inflation. This key combination of factors still provides a strong fundamental basis for continuing to hold silver over the long term.

Could Weak Silver Sentiment be Conveniently Manufactured by Central Bankers?
Interestingly, this depressed silver market sentiment picture seems to be the perfect political tool needed during a U.S. election year to lend much needed psychological support to an ever weakening U.S. Dollar in terms of its ability to purchase goods and services.

Keeping silver and other precious metal prices low by depressing market sentiment, and perhaps even engaging in covert market intervention, seems suspiciously convenient after such an excessive amount of liquidity has already been pumped into the U.S. monetary system by the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank's highly controversial quantitative easing measures promoted by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke.

In addition, given the high amount of liquidity the European Central Bank needed to inject to deal with the debt troubled Eurozone countries like Greece, Spain, Italy, Ireland and Portugal, the increasingly obvious end result will be higher consumer price inflation, despite ongoing denials by central bank and government officials.

More QE Measures Likely as U.S. Economy Languishes in Election Year
Bearish for the Dollar, but very bullish for hard precious metal currencies like silver, is the view among many market participants that further rounds of quantitative easing or QE measures by the Fed are still practically a given during this election year to help lend support to a stubbornly struggling U.S. economy.

Nevertheless, allowing metals to trade higher based on their strong fundamentals would severely dampen the U.S. central bankers' ability to overtly increase the money supply in a substantial way.
EU Moves Toward Ratifying ESM to Provide More Permanent Bailout Mechanism
Another related development is that the European Stability Mechanism or ESM is expected to be ratified by July of this year, provided that enough of the 17 Eurozone member states approve of the bailout system to represent ninety percent of its capital commitments.

This new EU rescue program is expected to permanently replace the existing temporary European Financial Stability Facility within the Eurozone, thereby making meta-government bailouts an ongoing feature of the Eurozone's economy.

As in the United States, a reasonable person can only expect more liquidity increasing measures will soon also follow in the EU, thereby making an even stronger case for continuing to hold and accumulate precious metals like silver.

Does Jamie Dimon's Problem Actually Reside in SILVER DERIVATIVES?

Facts are facts. Since May 7th the price of silver has been mercifully driven down below $30 and on May 10th Jamie Dimon announced a $2B derivative loss. The price of silver is continuing to be driven down which in my mind means only one thing...JPM is losing the physical silver game and having to drive the price lower to get their hands on physical at a price that would reduce their overall losses. Never mind that the paper silver short will increase...this is now a physical game.
A clue lies in the COMEX data that shows that silver is in backwardization!